1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to an ordering system for printed products, by means of which a printed product can be defined in a selection module of the ordering system and ordered from a supplier of the printed products, wherein printed products of the same product type are made of respective product components of the same product component types, and wherein each product component is defined by exactly one respective combination of a value for parameters such as page format, number of pages, coloration, type of paper, type of binding, processing, and finishing. The invention relates further to a method for ordering a printed product by means of an ordering system, wherein the ordering system determines a list of selectable values for respective parameters such as page format, number of pages, coloration, type of paper, type of binding, processing, and finishing of a product component of the printed product, and wherein the ordering system orders the printed product based on the defined values after a respective value has been defined for each of the parameters by a buyer.
Ordering systems, which in particular implement methods of the recited type, are generally known and are being increasingly used as a front end for orders by buyers of printed products. Large graphic production shops as suppliers for individual printed products advertise that they offer a buyer several hundreds of thousands of various printed products for selection through their respective ordering system and an online determination of the final price.
Each printed product is comprised of one or multiple product components. Each product component comprises respective predetermined values for parameters such as page format, page number, coloration, paper type, binding type, processing and finishing. The product components are typically categorized by product component types with descriptive designations such as “cover”, “content”, “postcard”, and “poster”.
The known ordering systems resort to using database structures for managing the printed products offered by one respective supplier. These database structures issue an article number for each particular printed product in a dataset and list the specific values of the parameters for each particular product component where necessary, and a price calculated there from based on a respective formula. For example, when the technical capabilities of the graphics production shop change or when the calculation for a parameter changes, each particular dataset in said data structure needs to be maintained.
In particular, in large graphics production shops with a plurality of different machines and accordingly a plurality of various options for graphics production, maintaining data for the known ordering systems is so complex that complete automation of orders through the ordering systems eventually becomes uneconomical. In order to reduce the complexity of data maintenance, the known ordering systems are often used to capture only portions of the selections actually available and they state furthermore that additional options will be available upon request.
2. Object of the Invention
Thus, it is the object of the invention to simplify data management for an ordering system for printed products.